He was the first to rush into the Pentagon on 9/11. Part of him never left.

ARLINGTON, Va. (DC News Now) — “Even though it was 24 years ago, those memories you can’t really erase,” retired Pentagon Protection Force police officer Isaac Ho’opi’i said. “Especially what you’ve seen, what you went through, what you smelled.”

Before Ho’Opi’i’s world– and everyone’s world– changed forever, he remembers talking to his wife.

“I told my wife, ‘I’ll be home early to fix it,’” he remembered. “That’s when I realize you never really expect the unexpected.”

Just before 9 a.m., then-Sergeant Ho’opi’i and his K9 partner, Vito, had stopped by the veterinary clinic at Fort Myer near the Pentagon. Vito was due for a routine checkup. There, he overheard radio chatter: a plane had struck a building in New York. Moments later, word of another.

“That’s when the whole ground just shook,” he said. “There was a big explosion. There was a call out on the radio, ‘This is not a drill, this is not a drill, a plane just slammed into the Pentagon.'”

“I said, ‘Hey, we gotta go.’ Responded back to the Pentagon, and sure enough, there was a big fire going off,” Ho’opi’i said.

Ho’opi’i would later learn he was the first rescuer to enter the Pentagon that morning.

“Everything was in slow motion. Windows are shattered, doors are blown out.”

Inside, he pressed forward around jet fuel puddles, live wires, and choking smoke. The power was out in that section of the Pentagon, and his path was obfuscated by darkness. Voices cried out from the chaos.

“One of the firefighters say, ‘Hey, you need to get out of here,’” Ho’opi’i said, pointing to an air quality tester. “And I was just about to turn around, and I looked back.”

Instinct overcame any fear, and he put stranger before self.

“I started using my voice. I said, ‘Hey, I’m over here, can you hear me?’ Somebody popped up, I don’t know if it was a male or female. Put them on my shoulders and took them out,” he said.

He said he practically remembers each step and just how far he ran carrying each victim to safety.

“There was a lady digging into my arm; she didn’t want to let go,” he said.

He handed her off to a nearby medic for treatment, turning back to search and call for others.

Between rescues, he made one brief call home.

“I did find a phone on the wall dangling and just call home and say, ‘Hey, I’m ok. I’m pretty busy. I’ll call you later,’” he said.

He’d thought he made the call home ten minutes into the chaos. His wife, Gigi, later told him that she’d been waiting at least an hour to hear from him. The cries of that day never left him.

“Just that incident alone, it’s like a last desperation when they’re calling out,” he said. “It’s a different yell for help. That stick with me.”

For many survivors, Ho’opi’i kept the world spinning that morning. One in particular was recovering in a hospital weeks later when a journalist asked about his rescue. He recalled a burly man with an accent. The journalist and Ho’opi’i’s supervisor connected the dots, linking the two.

For 24 years, Ho’opi’i and the survivor have stayed in touch, with regular calls on birthdays, holidays, and always, just before Sept. 11. The two rehash that day, which Ho’opi’i said began a great friendship. Talking out what happened with Ho’opi’i helps the man process and keep the memory alive.

Despite saving so many, Ho’opi’i fights the nagging questions about what could’ve been done differently.

“The hard thing is, as a first responder, is did you do enough? You get that guilt, feel like, man, I should have done this.”

The months that followed brought grueling 12-hour shifts amid devastation. Each night, he carried home the smell of chemicals and smoke on his uniform, and the weight of his grief on his chest. Gigi called in reinforcement.

“I said, what are you doing here? We came to eat dinner. Oh ok,” he recalled. “We stayed there and we played all night to the next morning.”

Two friends, who he said are more like brothers, came for a night of music and ohana- family.

Music became his sanctuary and his respite, grounding him to his Hawaiian roots, and, for just a few moments, lightening the load of grief.

“Exactly what I needed,” he said. “Playing that music; it gave me an outlet.”

Today, the walls of his Vienna, Virginia, home tell the story of a humble hero: a Congressional Medal of Valor, the Olympic torch he carried through Fairfax County the following year, and commendations from lawmakers.

But the countless family photos of his children and grandchildren smiling, laughing, and hula dancing tell the story that Ho’opi’i holds most dear, and one that’s in his DNA: ohana.

Born in Waianae on the coast of Oahu, community and responsibility to others were values that surrounded him growing up, as he played sports and learned about the history of his culture. He went on to serve in the Army, bringing the island’s melodies wherever he went.

After serving, he began performing music to promote Hawaiian tourism, which brought him to the D.C. area, where a friend suggested he look into working in the Pentagon’s police force.

With his band, The Aloha Boys, he continues to play the soothing music of the islands. His family shares the spirit of ohana through hula dancing and music with performances across the Washington, D.C., region.

“The people, the dancing and just the chemistry you bring from Hawaii, showing it out here,” he said.

The ukulele strings offer a fleeting solace; the pain endures. While the attacks recede into the haze of America’s collective memory, for Ho’opi’i, they remain vividly and inescapably etched into the contours of his life.

“I just don’t want people to forget, because then, as time goes on, you know, time heals. But as we go on, we’re seeing a different mindset,” he said. “Just knowing that, hey, we need to stick together as Americans.”

For Ho’opi’i, one legacy of 9/11 is not his own bravery, but the reminder that America, fractured as it may be, has the capacity to unite. To find a moment of ohana.